Years ago some friends and I were going on a cruise. On our way to the coast, we stayed the night at one of the girls aunts home. This woman’s generous hospitality caused her to order a gigantic cheeseball from her caterer for us to enjoy. When I say gigantic, I’m not kidding, it was the size of a mixing bowl.

The 4 of us, together in the room with the cheeseball lost all sense of time and space. It was as if we were alone in the universe with this cheeseball. After some time had passed we became slightly self conscious of our feeding frenzy. Due to social etiquette only, we stopped eating having already consumed half of our beloved ball of wonder.

We asked the aunt for the recipe and were politely declined. She said it cost $100 and the caterer would not part with the recipe.

I’ve spent several years trying to perfect my version of the recipe. This is where I am so far. I actually like it better than the one we had. It is still pretty expensive to make and I recommend doubling it. In fact you may consider tripling it so you can hoard one cheeseball for yourself and then serve the rest to company. It is very beautiful and makes an impressive display. Here is the recipe. If anyone discovers something to improve it please let me know. Enjoy!!!

Cheeseball with Pesto and Sun Dried Tomatoes

Ingredients - I splurged, but you can use less expensive ingredients.

32 oz cream cheese softened

8 ounces of goat cheese softened

2-3 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning

2 clove of garlic crushed

About 4 ounces of prepared basil pesto

About 4 ounces of prepared sun dried tomato pesto

½ Cup of sun dried tomatoes chopped in processor.

¼ cup toasted pine nuts (toast them on the stove or in the oven if you can’t buy them toasted)

Hi again and happy new year! All is great up here – but we would like to get to a suny destination in the next months or two… What do you say – reunion at El Dorado?! 😉 Hope you and your family are great! ox